Today I bring you the BEST cookie recipe in the world. No, that’s not an exaggeration or a figure of speech. It is, literally, the best cookie I’ve eaten to date. And what is this wonder called? Nutella-stuffed pecan cookies. And why do you confirm that it is the best? Because it meets all the requirements to be the star cookie. Well, here I digress…. If you like your cookies moist and tender, with a firmer outside, this is the cookie of your dreams. But if you prefer hard or extremely crunchy cookies, maybe this is not your ideal cookie.
Personally, I like almost all cookies. In fact, I’m trying to think back to see if I don’t like any of them…. And I don’t remember any. I mean in terms of formats or types, because if we talk about brands or things like that, there if I can list a few that I don’t like at all.
I’ve been thinking for a long time of leaving you recipes for this kind of cookies.
I’ve seen them a lot on Instagram and Pinterest, and I always thought, oh I have to make them. But as it always happens to me, for one thing or another, I kept postponing them. But everything has its moment and, I guess, this was the ideal time to leave you this bomb in every way. Because it is an immense energy bonus. It is very difficult to resist a chubby cookie, with a moist inside and, in addition, stuffed. With Nutella. I’m already thinking of making other versions… Like Valrhona’s hazelnut pâte a tartiner.
This time I have filled them with Nutella, but you can use any other type of filling, spreadable cream or jam, according to your taste.
By the way, the recipe I leave you is based on Gallymini Patisse (thanks for your work!) and to which I have given some modifications. Certainly the two recipes are not too similar, but I started from hers to carry out this one. So I think it is very necessary to mention and link her work, because surely many of you will be like me. Thanks to the work of one person, you can carry out and create some recipes.
Sugar origin.
The origin of cookies is related to the discovery of sugar.
The sugarcane route started in New Guinea and reached India, from where it spread to China and the Near East. The first people to taste its flavor were the Indians.
The first historical references to sugar date back to 4500 B.C. Much later, around 510 B.C., sugar reached Persia. From there, it reached Europe in the 4th century B.C., thanks to Alejandro Magno’s voyages and conquests through Asia, but it was not cultivated.
Later, the Greeks bequeathed it to the Romans, who called it ‘salt of India‘.
The 7th century A.D. marked an important milestone in the spread of sugar consumption. It was the Arabs, true sweet tooth lovers, who, upon invading the Tigris and Euphrates regions, discovered the infinite possibilities presented by this ingredient. They introduced it into the newly conquered areas, cultivating sugar cane in Syria, Egypt, Cyprus, Rhodes and all of North Africa. It was precisely there that Egyptian chemists perfected its processing and refined it.
Its expansion continued through the voyages of Venetian merchants and, a century later through the Crusades to the Holy Land, it became known throughout the world.
It was not until the Middle Ages that sugar arrived in Spain.
And it is implanted as a food spice, being widely used to perfume dishes. Apothecaries began to use it as an integral part of many recipes and even to prepare potions or medicines to cure any kind of ailment, including lovesickness.
When America was discovered, sugar traveled in the hands of the Spanish conquistadors to Santo Domingo, where it was cultivated on a large scale, later reaching Cuba and Mexico. At the same time, the Spanish expanded its cultivation to Asian areas such as the Philippines and the Pacific archipelagos. The Portuguese introduced it to Brazil, the French to the Indian Ocean colonies and the Dutch to the Antilles.
By the end of the 17th century, the production and consumption of cane sugar had spread practically all over the world. The colonies had become the world’s main sugar producers and the struggle for their independence threatened the supply of Europe.
It was Napoleon Bonaparte who, through his campaigns at the beginning of the 19th century, promoted the spread of this foodstuff, in addition to promoting the construction of sugar factories in France, policies that were followed by other European nations and Germany.
Cookies origin.
Soldiers of the Persian army of Darius (Immortals), around 500 B.C., discovered sugar on the banks of the Indus River during one of their conquering expeditions. They came across a plant that they said “produces honey without the help of bees“. The Persians learned to evaporate sugarcane juice in India.
The Chinese would later follow in their footsteps in the 2nd century B.C. In the courts of China and Persia, cakes and cookies of high quality were consumed. The manufacture of cakes and sweet cookies reached the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century, thanks to the Arabs.
In the 11th century, the manufacture of cookies was restricted to a few European courts. For example, the French court of Savoy, where savoiardi or “Savoy cookies” were consumed.
Three basic types of cookies can be distinguished:
- Cookies made with hard or medium-hard dough, which are usually used to make traditional varieties.
- Soft dough, used to make sponge cakes and pastries.
- Liquid dough, used to make the famous wafers or neulas.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, all the sugar consumed in Europe came from American sugar cane plantations. It was a scarce commodity, and although cookies were made at home and sold in the most renowned bakeries during special holidays, it remained a whim reserved for the wealthy classes. This was the case until the 19th century, when beet sugar began to be produced in France.
In 1792, Pearson & Sons Bakery.
From Chicago, it began manufacturing a type of long-life cookie for sailors called Pilot Bread or nautical cookie. Years later it merged with New York Biscuit Company to create Nabisco. This company created the famous Oreo in 1912.
That same year, almond cookies began to be manufactured in an Italian monastery. A round cookie with a soft interior, made with ground almonds or coconut and flavored with chocolate, spices and aromas. The French Carmelites, who had to remain locked up in the monasteries during the Revolution, began to make these cookies to stock up on food that could be preserved. Also known as macaroon or amaretti, the latter made with bitter almonds.
In 1596, under the reign of Elizabeth R. in England, one of the first books containing cookie recipes, The good housewife jewel, by Thomas Dawson, is published. In one of the recipes it is proposed to make a mixture of fine flour, quality water, eggs and sugar, plus other ingredients, such as cloves, which will add special flavors.
In Germany, during the 19th century, the custom of giving cookies as gifts on Sundays in December, during the Advent period, was established. The Germans borrowed this custom from ancient Rome, where buns and bread were given as gifts, first during the Saturnalia and then in Christian Rome during Christmas. It did not take them long to realize that before baking the cookies, they could be stamped with images of animals, houses or scenes from the Bible. This is how the famous springerle were created.
Cookies with filling.
I have searched a lot and I can’t find an exact time detailing when two cookies with a filling started to be joined together except for the famous Beckelar Prince cookies.
Their history dates back to 1850 when a baker named Edouard de Beukelaer started making his own cookies. This baker made cookies for the Prince of Belgium, who loved to snack on cookies and chocolate. So he thought it would be a great idea to combine the two elements to create a filled cookie.
It was such a success that it soon began to be marketed all over the world.
In 1955, his son Edouart II built a factory in a small German village, Kempen, near the Rhine, called “E. Beukelaer Flemish Biscuit Factory“. Since then, the Prinzen cookies have been manufactured there and have become popular under the German name “Prinzen Rolle“.
From here, as we know well, the ideas evolved and gave rise to new creations. The cookie that I leave you with today, Nutella-stuffed pecan cookies for example, is filled, but not in the way sandwich cookies are made. On the contrary, when we bite into it or break it, we will find a melting, creamy and luxurious filling. Another version that allows us to enjoy, very much, the world of cookies.
Recipe Nutella-stuffed pecan cookies
Ingredients for 6 cookies of about 135 g/piece- 120 g unsalted butter, cold
- 125 g panela or light muscovado sugar
- 1 large egg
- 265 g pastry/cake flour
- 3 g baking powder
- 2 g salt
- 150 g milk chocolate chips
- 50 g pecans
- Nutella, about 90 g
- stand mixer/ KitchenAid stand mixer* + crystal bowl KitchenAid*
- bowls
- silicone spatula
- perforated tray, mine is DeBuyer*
- silpat or teflon sheet
- recipient for store cookies in the fridge, mine is this ceramic container Emile Henry*
- round cookie cutter or pastry ring with a large diameter than cookies (optional)
- cooling rack
Instructions
Prepare cookie dough.
- In the bowl of the mixer add the butter, cut into cubes, together with the sugar. Beat with the flat beater on speed 1 until the mixture is more or less homogeneous. If there are any small pieces of butter left unintegrated, that's okay.
- Add the egg and mix again until completely integrated. Whenever necessary, with the help of a silicone spatula, lower the mixture from the sides of the bowl and/or the whisk utensil.
- Add the flour all at once, along with baking powder and salt. Mix on speed 1 just until no flour remains.
- Finally, incorporate chocolate chips along with the pecans, lightly chopped. Mix for a few seconds to distribute evenly.
- Store the cookie dough in the refrigerator for 1 hour. That way, it will be much easier to manipulate it to form the cookies.
Shape cookies.
- Divide the cookie dough into six pieces of approximately 125 g each.
- Once we have them shaped, proceed to stuff them. Create a hole in the cookie piece, as if we were forming a small bowl, and place a piece of frozen Nutella.
- Carefully close the cookie dough, making sure there are no holes. Otherwise, during baking, the filling will come out. Roll well and set aside.
- Repeat the same process with the rest of the cookies.
- Once they are all shaped, decorate the outside with chocolate chips and pieces of pecans.
- Place in a container, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 12-24 hours.
- NOTE: To make the frozen Nutella pieces do the following. With the help of a dessert spoon, take a good amount of Nutella and form a mound in a container or tupper. Repeat the same process until we get 6 in total. Freeze for 1-2 hours. In this way, we will be able to manipulate the Nutella very easily, as well as to close and form the cookie without the filling coming out.
Bake cookies.
- Preheat oven to 374ºF/190ºC with heat up and down.
- Bake the cookies cold, that is, as soon as we take them out of the refrigerator.
- Place the cookies on a perforated tray lined with silpat or Teflon, try to leave space between them because they will expand a little.
- Bake at medium height for 13-14 minutes.
- As we take the cookies out of the oven, then, with the help of a round cookie cutter with a diameter larger than that of the cookies, we will shape them. Put the cutter, leaving the cookie inside, and turn to give it a round shape. You will see this step better in the video. It is normal that after baking, they lose their shape a little. Thus, while they are still warm and tender, we will mold them to make them round.
- Place on a wire rack and let them cool completely.
- Enjoy... Very much.
Notes
- You can use salted butter, if desired. In that case, omit the salt from the ingredients.
- The result, both in flavor and sweetness and color, is better with panela or light brown sugar/muscovado sugar than if we use white sugar.
- When preparing the cookie dough, mix only for the time that I detail. Do not over mix in this step.
- In my case I used milk chocolate chips, but you can use another variety if you wish.
- Pecans, for my liking, are the best for making cookies. But in case you don't have them or can't find them, you can use normal nuts or another nut of your choice.
- I advise you to refrigerate the dough for an hour before shaping. It will make this step much easier, especially in hot weather.
- It is important to freeze the Nutella before stuffing the cookies. This step makes the process much easier.
- Nutella can be replaced by another variety of chocolate cream or even another creamy filling, such as dulce de leche, Biscoff cream, etc....
- If desired, to shape the Nutella, we can use silicone hemisphere molds. It is not essential, but we will achieve a more perfect shape. In my case, in this occasion, I did not use them.
- I recommend decorating the cookies, once shaped, with chips and nuts. They will be much more visually appealing.
- Cookies must rest in the refrigerator before baking. Either in the refrigerator, as I show you, or in the freezer. In the latter case, you can reduce the time to about 2-3 hours.
- Baking time may vary, minute up minute down, depending on each oven.
- Do not forget to use a cutter through each cookie, as we take them out of the oven, to give them a rounded shape.
- I advise you, although I know this is very difficult, to wait for them to cool completely before enjoying them. The consistency of the cookie acquires the perfect firmness, otherwise it is possible that (if they are warm) they are too tender and break easily.
- When they come out of the oven they are VERY TENDER, do not handle them, let them cool or, at least, warm.
- They can be kept in an airtight container for a week. But, if you manage to make them for two hours, I will applaud you very much. At home they flew, hahaha.
